In All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Bäumer is the main character and
narrator. Prior to the war, Paul was close to his family, thoughtful,
sensitive, and enjoyed writing poetry. But during the war, Paul’s personality
and emotions changed with the trauma of the war. He is unable to cope with the
death of his fellow friends/soldiers and feel the same way as he once did at home. Paul
finds it hard to express his negative experiences associated with the war and
think about his future. Through fighting in the war, Paul’s character endures
hardship and the loss of many people who were close to him.
Paul’s character changes more
towards the end of the book. An example of this is when Paul gives away the jam
and potato cakes his mother made for him to the Russian prisoners. This is
because the cakes remind Paul of his mother’s pain and suffering. Paul’s views
on death start to change as the war goes on. Paul has to kill a French soldier
who jumped in his shell. He describes the experience as agonizing, since the
soldier didn’t pass away until several hours later. Paul had bandaged the
soldier and given him water. After the soldier passed away, Paul talks with the
dead soldier, explaining that he didn’t want to kill him. Later on, Paul then witnesses
the death of one of his closest friends, Kat, while Paul was trying to save
him.
Throughout the novel, Paul’s
character changes from being a content guy before the war to a lost and haunted
soldier after the war. Paul is the only survivor of the original group of classmates.
He feels he is left with a bleak future after he receives leave from the war
from inhaling poison gas. While Paul’s on leave, he thinks about his fellow
soldiers and what their generation will face. Paul has basically lost all hope
in himself and his generation. Paul is killed on a peaceful October day. His
face seemed to express relief as if it was alright for himself to let go.
In chapter seven, the narrator of the story, Paul, reveals some of the most powerful moments of the book. Two distinct events occur in this chapter: Paul and his friends chase French girls, and Paul goes on a leave of absence. Many of Paul’s friends have died; in fact 120 men had died up to this point in the book.
After gawking over a poster of a pretty young girl, Paul and his friends hang out near the canal. They see a few French girls across the canal, and begin yelling in broken French. Throughout the book, the boys talk about women quite a bit. They make up stories of sexual experience to impress the other soldiers. Because the boys had only limited access to women for such long periods of time, it was an outlet for their budding adolescent sensations. Tjaden even offered the girls some bread as a bribe to get them to come across the canal. Food is another recurring theme in the book. As young men, the soldiers are desperate for more food each day that the war runs on. They are even willing to barter rations out for equipment or clothing when they become extremely desperate. The boys decide to visit the girls at night, and end up getting Tjaden so drunk that he can not walk. After meeting up with the girls, Paul realizes that he will not be able to hold on to the girl that he is with, and his mood turns grim. He can not take his mind off of the horror of the war.
Paul gets seventeen days for his leave of absence. He goes home for the few days of travel time that he receives. His mother is very sick, but his family is happy to see him. Paul gets angry at the way some of the civilians treat him. He doesn’t enjoy the fact that they feel a sense of honor when serving him, especially when one train tenant refers to him as her ‘comrade.’ Paul is extremely happy to be eating food that differs from the plain, tasteless military food. Basically, everyone is who is not involved with the war continues to ask Paul questions, and he gets upset. His mother is the only one who refrains from these questions. Paul explains that he would like to please the civilians with heroic battle stories, but he simply can not put it all into words. And if he did find a way to word it, he feels he would lose control completely. The civilians perceive the war front completely different. They believe its better fighting the battles than it is at home. Paul brushes off many of the upsetting comments. Surprisingly, Paul states that he wished he’d never come home on leave. He felt that he was hopeless, and that he was a man of war, nothing else.
Tess Hamre, Cody Kvamme, Will Wacholz, Mustafa Al-Abbad
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